Not the least embarrassment of the French bishops, in the present political crisis of France, has been to decide whether Catholics should be called upon to forget the constant annoyance and petty persecution to which they are still subjected—even since the fall of M. Herriot’s deliberately anti-Catholic Government—and to respond generously to all appeals made by the Government, as though the union sacrée which M. Herriot brought to an end were still really in existence. It is true that, since M. Herriot’s downfall, the open challenge to the Church on the question of the Vatican’ Embassy has not been officially renewed. The threats to the religious communities which have settled in France in defiance of the laws proscribing them, have not been carried out; though the inquisition into their numbers and their status throughout the country, which was set up by M. Herriot’s Government and methodically organised, has placed full information in the Government’s hands, which may at any time be made use of by an anti-clerical Government. And the attempt to compel Alsace and Lorraine to accept the same educational system as the rest of France has also been suspended.

But all over the country minor incidents have continued to provoke violent resentment. The Ministry for the Interior, which controls the whole local government of the country, and through the distribution of patronage arid by more direct means ‘makes’ the elections in a manner calculated to ensure the permanent success of the Left, has always been jealously kept in the hands of anti-clerical Ministers even during the war; and the Prefects nominated by them have been using their powers to prohibit religious processions, and to interfere in various other ways with such liberties as the Catholics still possess.

What is crime? Who is a criminal? The questions persist; they call for answer every time the Reports of Prison Commissioners are issued. Before we decide how the criminal is to be treated let us know who the criminal is; let us discover how any one of us, at present, it may well be, unconvicted and at large, can fall into crime and be lodged in gaol. Why do we put people in prison? is the first question. Arising out of that (as the House of Commons would express it) is the supplementary question : How are we to treat our neighbour when we have put him (or her) in prison? In short, What is crime, and how is it committed?

Father Francis Day, in his booklet, The Community and the Criminal, rightly called a ‘guide to Catholic service,’ so full is it of helpful information and the wise counsel of experience for all Catholics who would help our prisoners and captives—offers as ‘a working definition of crime’ :—’ A deliberate act contrary to those laws of the State which enforce or interpret the Natural Law.’ And this Natural Law, Father Day reminds us, is ‘universal, based on human nature and manifested by reason.’

If this definition be true, and far be it from the layman to suggest doubt, how few, how very few, are the inmates of prison—past or present—who can justly be labelled ‘criminal.’ The State, indeed, makes no pretence of requiring general obedience to Natural Law.

About twenty years ago I set down for publication what I now feel I must publish. The heroine of the story has been dead some years. If there is any poignancy in what I write, it comes from my having written down the martyr’s words with scrupulous accuracy a few minutes after hearing them.

Heard May 6th, 19—, in a slum bed-sitting room, scrupulously clean.

‘It was the time when there were meetings against Catholics.’ (By this she meant the No Popery agitation of 1850.)

‘I went to some, and was very angry that they would not let Catholics speak.

‘I told the Vicar what I thought. He said : “You are half a Roman Catholic.”

‘“No,” I said, “but I like fair play. I like to hear the other side. You won’t let Catholics tell their side of the question.”

‘I read Catholic books; read them in bed—read by night. They had been saying dreadful things against the Confessional. I knew a Catholic woman. So I went to her, and said : “Would you be so kind as to let me see one of your prayer books?” She looked at me for some time. Then she said : “ I could not let you take it back with you. But if you like to look at it here, you can do so.” She took me to another room, and handed me the Prayer-book. I found the Examination of Conscience, but could not come across any of the dreadful things I had heard about it.

‘Then I said to Mrs. X—: “Your priest” (who lodged across the road) “seems to me a good man. Could I see him? I should like to convert him—”

When in 1925 the sudden and deeply regretted death of its promoter brought the Dalkey Nativity Play to a close it was thought that an end, at least for the time being, had come to representations of Mysteries in Ireland. The strange fatality so often over-shadowing Irish efforts had, it seemed, struck again at the root, and all that had helped to produce the drama disintegrated. Kindled for a moment by Lady O’Connell the latent artistry of Irish children would be left to smoulder out without a chance of expression. The ‘thing of beauty’ she had built up during four Christmas Seasons and that in its continuance would have inspired other pioneers to work in the same field too quickly ceased to be. No sign appeared of another hand to carry on the torch and to help to establish a tradition. Like a comet, the Dalkey Nativity Play had flashed upon us for a moment and was gone, and only its memory as an artistic creation remained. Then suddenly in the early days of May this year it was announced in connection with the prospective centennial of Blessed Imelda Lambertini that on Whit Monday, May 23rd, two Mystery Dramas were to be produced at the Theatre Royal, Dublin. The Plays, Imelda and Tarsicius, were from the pen of the Rev. H. M. Gaffney, O.P. The first was to be presented by the girls of the Dominican College, Eccles Street, and the second by the boys of SS. Thomas and Tarsicius Altar Sodality, St. Saviour’s, Dominic Street. A choir of the choristers from Corpus Christi Church, Drumcondra, were to render the Plain Chant, and the Orchestra was to be that of the Loretto College girls.

The infallible dogmas of the Holy Roman Church have always attracted so much attention that the world as a whole has remained in ignorance of the vast terrain on which the Church not only permits but encourages what we may call agnosticism. Just as she has been uncompromising in maintaining the revelation entrusted to her and the definitions she has once reached, so she has always insisted that there are immense tracts of investigation with which she has no direct concern, and which she leaves to the human intellect; regions regarding which she has no enlightenment to convey and which in many cases are beyond the reach of reason.

Take, for example, her attitude towards Science as defined in that same Council of 1870 which defined the Infallibility of the Pope. She leaves ‘to each of the Sciences to make use of its own principles and its own method in its own sphere.’ She wishes to preserve them from error, certainly, by warning them that, if in conflict with the truth, there must be some mistake : and she wishes also to prevent their encroaching magisterially on the realm of faith. But she does not dictate the movements of the stars to the astronomers, nor the composition of substances to the chemists. She urges rather that the rightly-ordered reason not only produces fruit of itself, but leads on to a truth better than its own.’ So far, therefore, is the Church from opposing the cultivation of the human arts and sciences, that she in many ways helps and promotes it;

II

The two centuries of Tartar domination brought on radical changes in Russia. Whilst the South or Ukraine, temporarily occupied by Lithuania and Poland, remained open to Western influence, a new Power was gradually and steadily growing and strengthening in the densely wooded territories of Central Russia. In the early fourteenth century the thrifty and hardy rulers of Moscow, an insignificant and poor principality, began slowly and laboriously to extend their domain at the expense of other impoverished principalities, to ‘gather the lands,’ according to old Russian chronicles, until towards the middle of the fifteenth century, Muscovy became an important State under Ivan III, who shook off the last vestige of the Tartar yoke. For centuries cut off from Western influence, Moscow was strongly conservative in every way, and considered herself the natural heir of By-zance, a belief which Ivan Ill’s marriage with Sophia Paleologue, descendant of the last Emperors, only strengthened. Moscow claimed to be the ‘Third Rome,’ and the depository of the sole true faith. Her attitude towards Catholicism and everything coming from Rome was uncompromisingly hostile. The Union of Florence was rejected by Vassili II, Ivan’s father, and the Metropolitan Issidore, who was charged by the Pope with the mission of obtaining Russia’s adherence, was imprisoned, but eventually succeeded in escaping and leaving Russia. This anti-Catholic hostility was actively fostered by the Greek clergy. Despite such a seemingly hopeless outlook the Popes repeatedly tried to enter into cordial relations with the Great Princes and Tsars of Muscovy, though all their efforts remained fruitless.